This invention relates to display racks, and more particularly to an improved gondola display rack of the gravity feed type.
This invention is particularly adapted, but not necessarily limited to, use in the merchandising of beverages as for example, soft drinks and beer. Gondola display racks, constructed primarily of sheet metal, are commonly used in grocery stores, supermarkets, and the like for the display and merchandising of beverages. Beverages are sold in bottles and containers of various sizes, smaller bottles being commonly packaged in cartons, and the larger multi-liter sizes being generally in the form of individual bottles. The sizes of the small bottles may vary, and the relative proportion of cartons to large bottles in a particular display also varies, depending on the demand experienced by a particular vendor. For these reasons, gondola display racks should be adjustable for optimum usage of available space.
A typical gondola display rack comprises a sheet metal base and a vertical upright extending upwardly from the rear of the base. The bottles and beverage cartons are normally arranged on shelves supported from the upright and cantilevered over the base. The shelves are typically in a gravity feed orientation in which a front edge of the shelf is vertically lower than a rear edge thereof. As a result, merchandise positioned on the shelf will tend to advance by gravity toward the front edge thereof. The gravity feed of merchandise toward the front edge of the shelf maintains the product in a conveniently accessible location for the customer on the shelf.
A common problem characteristic of gondola displays is that there is very little flexibility in the mix of products which may be displayed on a single shelf. To organize and promote the gravity feed advance of the merchandise on the shelves, partitions or dividers are commonly employed which extend longitudinally on the shelf between the front edge and the back edge. The partitions or dividers separate the merchandise into columns so that when the leading item in a column of merchandise is removed, the remaining items in that column advance forwardly thereby replacing the removed item without interference from adjacent columns of merchandise. However, the channel widths that arrange the merchandise into columns are typically set by the shelf manufacturer. The dividers are often permanently secured or formed into the shelf. If so fixed, the retailer or vendor has very little flexibility in designing a merchandising display or providing a mix of variously sized merchandise items on a given shelf.
One alternative to the problems associated with dividers permanently secured to or formed with the gravity feed shelf is the use of removable wire racks secured atop the shelf. These racks are typically constructed so as to allow rows of items to be displayed along the depth of the gondola shelf. The rack is supported by the shelf. The number of rows of items displayed on any particular shelf depends on the shelf width and the width of the product. The rows defined by the rack have heretofore often been of a width dimension creating a rather loose fit of displayed product within the divider rack channels because the standard width shelf often results in a portion of the shelf being wasted. While a loose fit is desirable in order to allow articles to freely slide over an inclined shelf surface toward the front edge thereof, usable shelf space is foregone to the extent that the gondola shelf channel widths are fixed and set by the manufacturer. Display racks of this type for use on gravity feed gondola shelves are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,945 assigned to the assignee of this invention. However, these wire racks still have fixed width columns for the merchandise. The vendor is still restricted in configuring or re-configuring a display depending upon the channel widths fixed by the manufacturer of the rack.
Another approach for arranging merchandise on a gravity feed shelf is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,584 directed to a variable shelf organizer. This patent discloses a substantially flat product supporting floor member having a plurality of channel-like dovetail slots formed between upright support members on the floor member. Dividers having inverted T-shaped lower ends are designed to selectively engage and disengage the dovetail slots to form product guide channels between adjacent dividers.
Problems associated with the shelf organizer disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,584 include the relative expansive tooling and involved manufacturing of the floor members required to form the intricate channel-like spaces in the floor member and the difficulty in reconfiguring the product channel widths by sliding the dividers from the channel-like spaces and then re-inserting them as desired. Furthermore, the floor member are each of a limited width and multiple floor members must be joined side-by-side to cover widths larger than a single floor member. However, a shelf which is not equal in width to an integral number floor members still has unused, but available, merchandising space thereon.